starbucks4ever (87.69)

The Trial

0

In Russia, defending yourself again bogus charges can be notoriously difficult. The typical trial looks as follows. They read the accusation to you which says something like, "At an unspecified time, in an unspecified place, an unspecified group of people committed unspecified actions which violated an unspecified article of the criminal code". You then choose your lawyer and do your best to prove that you alwaysdid not commit the actions they accuse you of. Most of the time you fail to prove that, because of the nebulous nature of charges, which, as Pauli once said on a different occasion, are not even wrong.

"The former oil magnate used his testimony to quickly contend that the new charges against him — like those that put him in prison the first time — are motivated by politics and corruption.

Speaking from notes passed by lawyers into his cage, he portrayed the long, winding legal proceedings against him and a business partner as “legal schizophrenia,” saying he was being accused of stealing oil he had already been convicted of failing to pay tax on.

Prosecutors say the two embezzled about 2.5 billion barrels of crude between 1998 and 2003, or about a third of the United States’ entire annual consumption of oil. The defense has pointed out that Yukos did not pump that volume over those years."

A bubble in Gazprom and Rosneft share prices does not constitute investing. It's just a competition of speculators lining up to get their kopeck that they think might flow from the Soviet-built pipeline. When they start up a Russian IBM or a Russian INTC, that will be investment. Just wait and see what high-tech companies will spring up in the next 12 years under Putin. Oh yeah, I forgot, of course there is always Petrik with his water filters :)